Gemma Michelini Welsch, 60, a popular and pioneering DePaul University professor of accountancy who helped found the university’s management information systems program, died Feb. 21 after a year-and-half struggle with ovarian cancer.

An associate professor at DePaul’s School of Accountancy and Management Information Systems, Welsch lived her life with energy, empathy and humor. Her career and her marriage to DePaul Management Professor Harold Welsch, the Coleman Chair in Entrepreneurship at DePaul, spanned more than 30 years. Born in Chicago in 1945 to a second-generation, Italian-American family, Welsch’s teaching and studies took her around the world, brought her honors and enabled her to leave her mark on the university she loved.

“She was very proud of her Italian heritage,” said her husband, Harold. “One of the happiest times of our lives together was the year 1985-1986, when we both taught in Rome. Gemma had a visiting appointment to Loyola University’s Rome Center. We toured Italy and visited Tuscany, where her grandparents were born. Gemma loved opera and entertaining Italian-style, and she was in her element there.”

After obtaining both a bachelor’s degree in accountancy and a master’s of business administration degree from DePaul, Welsch was the first woman to earn a doctoral degree in accounting and information systems from Northwestern University in 1980.

Hired by her alma mater DePaul in 1972, when there was only an accounting department, Welsch helped establish the university’s management information systems (MIS) program that now forms part of the name and mission of DePaul’s School of Accountancy & Management Information Systems – one of the largest, most innovative and best-known professional schools of its kind in the country.

In addition to serving as the MIS administrative head for two years, Welsch developed the MIS curriculum and introduced innovative research topics. A popular teacher, Welsch was chosen twice, in 1998 and 1999, for the DePaul Ledger & Quill Faculty Excellence award for innovation and teaching. She also received the 1999 DePaul Quality of Instruction Council Excellence in Teaching Award, the university’s highest teaching award for active faculty.

Always drawn to cutting-edge business practices, Welsch focused her teaching on electronic commerce, management accounting for decision making, decision support, expert systems and MIS. Her business research topics included measuring the business value of investments in information technology, especially Internet technologies; decision support implementation; expert systems in auditing; and the consulting profession. Her publications included numerous national and international conference papers, and her work appeared in journals such as DATABASE and books published by the National University of Singapore and the London Business School. Her educational research specialties focused on student electronic portfolios and service learning.

Welsch held appointments as a visiting professor in Czechoslovakia and Hong Kong as well as Rome, and traveled widely throughout Europe, India and Australia. In addition to her academic credentials, she earned certified public accountant and certified management accountant standing, which she put to work in Applied Information Dynamics, her own consulting company.

In her active life, she was a member of three business honor societies: Beta Alpha Psi, where she was the first woman president; Delta Mu Delta, where she was faculty advisor to the DePaul chapter; and Beta Gamma Sigma, which honored her work at Northwestern University.

Visitation will be held at Haben Funeral Home, 8057 Niles Center Road, Skokie, Ill., from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 24. Church services will be held at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, 8116 Niles Center Road, Skokie, Ill., on Feb. 25, beginning at 10:30 a.m.